The new business-building website, code-named “Project Black Diamond”, has been approved and is now in its final design stage. We will have more information for you about this next week.
Also coming to its final period of implementation is the new version of the uVme Instant Messenger (IM) for both the games platform website and the business-building website, as well as the downloadable version of the uVme IM. We will have more updates for you next week on the progress of all of these new developments.
If you have not already registered for your uVme gaming platform, to ensure you are ‘up to speed’ when these fantastic enhancements are live why not register right now, just click the banner!
Are you an Internet Cafe owner? Do you want to increase your revenue/profits? Wouldn’t it be nice to continue to generate an ongoing income from a customer who has used your Internet Cafe while passing though on their journey somewhere else? What if you simply needed to change the homepage on your cafes’ computers to do this?
What if you could create this situation for what it would normally cost you to hire casual staff for just a couple of days? What if you could tap into a market that is worth millions of pounds a day? Would that be of interest to you?
If not, please leave a comment on this post with your reason.
If you are already leaning forward and re-reading this post then click the banner below and plug yourself in today.
- There was a very cautious man who never laughed or cried
- He never won, he never lost
- He played it safe and never tried
- He went to work, he earned his bread
- He watched the TV and went to bed
- He felt secure, he felt no pain
- He took no risk, he made no gain
- And when one day he passed away
- His insurance was denied
- …for since he NEVER really lived
- They claim he never REALLY died!
You only live once, make money on the game click the banner!
Google Talk is a Windows application for Voice over IP and instant messaging, offered by Google. The first beta version of the program was released on August 24, 2005.
Instant messaging between the Google Talk servers and its clients uses an open protocol, XMPP, allowing users of other XMPP clients to communicate with Google Talk users. VoIP in Google Talk is based around the Jingle protocol. The technology used within the Google server network however is not publicly known.
The Google Talk client is currently only available for Windows (2000, XP, Server 2003, and Vista). With the release of the Google Talk gadget, users of all platforms supported by Adobe Flash Player can also use Google Talk. Many other XMPP clients are compatible with Google Talk, and support a variety of other platforms.
Interoperability
Google has announced that a major goal of the Google Talk service is interoperability. Google Talk uses XMPP to provide real-time extensible messaging and presence events, including offline messaging and voice mailing. On January 17, 2006, Google enabled server-to-server communications, federating itself with any Jabber server that supports the dialback protocol.
There has been some discussion on the Google Talk Help group concerning the fact that certain personal information is made publically available without any method to control it. This allows anyone who has a Google Talk member on their buddy list to see when the user is and is not active on their computer, for example, by observing the user’s idle status as provided by the Google Talk client. Certain third-party software products have been developed to provide more control over the information made available. AlwaysIdle, for example, allows users to be ‘always idle’ or ‘never idle’, thus preventing personal presence information from being fed to the Google Talk service. Alternative client software, such as Pidgin and Trillian, also permit more privacy controls than the official Google Talk client.
On February 7, 2006, Gmail received chat functionality, and was integrated with Google Talk. Users can send instant messages to other Gmail users. Google Talk does not need to be downloaded to send instant messages to Gmail users.
Conversation logs are automatically saved to a Chats area in the user’s Gmail account. This allows users to search within their chat logs easily, and to have them centrally stored in their Gmail accounts.
Since November 8, 2006, Google has also integrated Google Talk with Orkut. This enables Google Talk users to interact with registered Orkut users, by sending and receiving ’scraps’ within Orkut.
It is also possible to display the song currently playing on the computer. This music data is collected, if the user agrees to this, and displayed on the Google Music Trends page.
The connection between the Google Talk client and the Google Talk server is encrypted, except when using Gmail’s chat over HTTP, a federated network that doesn’t support encryption, or when using a proxy like IMLogic. End-to-end messages are unencrypted. Google plans to add support for chat and call encryption in a future release. Some XMPP clients natively support encryption with Google Talk’s servers.
On July 28, 2006, Google added voicemail and file sending capabilities to the Google Talk client. Voicemail messages can be 10 minutes long, and they’re delivered to the contact’s Gmail mailbox as an attached MP3 file (11 kHz mono 24kbit/s). Gmail recognizes that it is a voicemail message, and users can choose to stream the file using the integrated MP3-playing applet, or to download the MP3 file.
On October 31, 2006, Google introduced offline messaging to Google Talk. This allows users to send messages to their contacts, even if they are not signed in. They will receive the messages when they next go online even if the user who has sent it is offline.
On June 30, 2006, Nokia released new software for their Nokia 770 Internet Tablet, that included Google Talk as one of the compatible VoIP clients, due to the XMPP-based software. Another Google Talk-compatible device is Sony’s mylo, released on September 15, 2006. A Google Talk client is also available for BlackBerry devices from the Blackberry site.
However, given that Google Talk provides XMPP protocol, most mobile phones for which a suitable XMPP client exists could also offer Google Talk service, at least theoretically (depending on the handset, the user may encounter security warnings due to unsigned J2ME midlets or limits put in place by the mobile service provider). Mobile clients specially designed for Google Talk exist as well.
Most phones support the IMPS protocol, and there are hybrid XMPP/IMPS networks (through Jabber transports, or specially designed hybrid servers), which can also contact GoogleTalk users. The Google Talk service itself is unusable from IMPS (that means, you cannot log with your Gmail account, but you can talk with your Gmail friends with your IMPS account from your mobile phone)
The idea of a Jabber-based Google IM service was proposed by Eoban Binder on the website Applexnet.com on August 23, 2004.
Exactly one year later, after the rumor of a Google-branded “communications tool” service had been reported by the New York Times and detailed by the Los Angeles Times on August 22, 2005, the subdomain talk.google.com was found to have an active Jabber server. Two methods of logging into the server were discovered soon after and the ensuing response by eager bloggers revealed to numerous others how to login before the official release by Google.
On the evening of August 23, many logged-in users using port 5222 to connect were disconnected and unable to log back in. Users using port 5223 to connect were still able to log in, and at 04:12:52 UTC those users received a broadcast instant message from gmail.com, an apparently official username used by Google to communicate with their user base, that stated “The broken link has been fixed. Thanks for being our first users!” Port 5222-connectivity was found to have been re-enabled. On August 24, Google Talk was officially launched.
On December 15, 2005, Google released libjingle, a C++ library to implement Jingle, “a set of extensions to the IETF’s Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) for use in voice over IP (VoIP), video, and other peer-to-peer multimedia sessions.” Libjingle is a library of the code that Google uses for peer-to-peer communication, and was made available under a BSD license.
On February 7, 2006, Gmail added the ability to chat with a built-in Jabber client.
On March 14, 2007, Google released the Google Talk Gadget, an Adobe Flash-based Talk module that can be added to iGoogle (formally the Google Personalized Homepage) or embeded in any web page, thus, allowing one to chat from any operating system, without the need to install software.
On November 26, 2007, Google Talk released Group Chat capabilities. Prior to this, users could only chat with one person per window. Group chat allows many users to chat with each other in an environment similar to IRC.
On December 6, 2007, Google upgraded its Gmail integrated chat to include AOL Instant Messenger chat capability. This allows Gmail users to sign into the AIM chat service and communicate with any AIM user while still being signed on to the Google Talk service. The Google Talk gadget and client have not been upgraded to enable this feature yet, and no announcement has been made as to when it will be made available.
Source: www.wikipedia.org
Hot of the press is the fact that in under four weeks (to be exact 6pm GMT 26th of February) 768519 games have been played on uVme!
That is absolutely amazing and really shows the potential of uVme, as we have only just started!
The epicentre of the operation is the guys and gals at Head Office who are really doing a fantastic job.
uVme is spreading like the shockwave from an earthquake, have you seriously looked at the business yet?
AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) is a free, advertisement-supported proprietary instant messaging and presence computer program which uses the OSCAR instant messaging protocol and the TOC protocol. It was released by AOL in May of 1997. It is one of the most popular instant message programs in the United States.
About
AOL Instant Messenger is an instant messaging application that allows all registered users to communicate in real time via text, voice, and video over the Internet. Stand-alone official AIM client software is available for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS and Mac OS X, and Linux. The software has a large share of the instant messaging market (with 52% of the total reported as of 2006), placing it ahead of the combined total user base of the two closest rivals. It is maintained by AOL LLC.
History
Since version 2.0, AIM has included person-to-person instant messaging, chatroom messaging, and the ability to share files peer-to-peer with one’s buddies. Versions 4.3 introduced the storing of one’s contact list on AOL’s servers and allowed for a maximum of 200 buddies to be stored. In addition, somewhere in the 4.x versions, the AIM client for Microsoft Windows added the ability to play games against one another using the WildTangent engine. The first version released with WildTangent did not warn the user that it was going to be installed. Newer versions do, due to the fact that many spyware scanners flag the WildTangent software as spyware.
AIM version 5.5 allowed Windows users to video conference with each other and with users of Apple Computer’s previously released iChat. Later updates led the version of AIM to version 5.9.
The successor to AIM version 5.9 was originally named AIM Triton. Compared with version 5.9, Triton’s programming code was rewritten and featured a brand new UI engine called Boxely. The first beta version of Triton (0.1.12) supported only Windows XP upon its release. For the first time in the development of a new version of AIM, these preliminary versions were made publicly available on the AIM home page for any user to test and provide feedback.
On September 29, 2006, Triton was renamed to AIM 6.0 and a new Beta version was made available. This version again changed the UI (albeit slightly). The final stable version of AIM 6.0 was released on December 15; new features included connection to AIM Pages, additional customization, and compatibility with address book programs and sites through a “Universal Address Book” powered by Plaxo. Additionally, the upgrade unified away messages and general user updates into RSS feeds and added the ability to send messages to offline users. Features that were missing from the prior version were added too, such as the ‘Get File’ function, global font customization, and a smaller cache usage. Also with this release was the opening of AIM to developers, which allowed anyone to create plug-ins or custom AIM clients for Windows, Macintosh, or Linux.
The next version, 6.1, added Buddy List docking, support for inserting images into Buddy Info, the ability to change the highlight colors of the UI, the ability to sign on as invisible, improvements to the displaying of Linked Screen Names, several bug fixes, and improved Windows Vista support.
AIM Express
AIM Express runs in a pop-up browser window. It is intended for use by people who are unwilling/unable to install a standalone application or people that are at a computer that lacks the AIM application. AIM Express supports many of the standard features included in the stand-alone client, but does not provide advanced features like file transfer, audio chat, video conferencing, or Buddy Info. It is implemented in DHTML.
Apple iChat
Apple’s iChat software was released in June 2003 for Mac OS X and was the first AIM-compatible client to allow for audio and video conferencing over the AIM protocol. While introducing it, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that iChat was the first AIM client not made by AOL to be officially recognized by AOL.
Protocol
The standard protocol that AIM clients use to communicate is called OSCAR. Most AOL-produced versions of AIM and popular third party AIM clients use this protocol. However, AOL also created a simpler protocol called TOC that lacks many of OSCAR’s features but is sometimes used for clients that only require basic chat functionality. The TOC/TOC2 protocol specifications were made available by AOL, while OSCAR is a closed protocol that third parties have had to reverse-engineer.
In January 2008, AOL introduced XMPP support for AIM. This means that AIM users can now communicate using the standardized, open-source XMPP/Jabber protocol.
Weaknesses
AIM is known for security weaknesses that have enabled exploits to be created that use third-party software to perform malicious acts on users’ computers. Although most are relatively harmless, such as being kicked off the AIM service, others perform potentially dangerous actions such as harvesting IP addresses and sending viruses over a direct connection. Some of these exploits rely on social engineering to spread by automatically sending instant messages that contain a URL accompanied by text suggesting the receiving user click on it, an action which leads to infection. These messages can easily be mistaken as coming from a friend– for example, “Click here to see pics of me from vacation!”– and contain a link to a web address that installs software on the user’s computer to restart the cycle.
Also, Viewpoint Media Player, a plugin used for displaying proprietary graphical content, is installed with the AIM client software and sends information about the user back to its developer.
It should also be noted that AIM has not been updated on the Apple Inc. Macintosh Platform since 2004. This is likely due to the fact that most AIM users on the Mac opt to use Apple’s own iChat software.
Configuration
AIM is different from other clients such as Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger in that it does not require approval from one buddy to be added to another’s buddy list. As a result, it is possible for users to keep other unsuspecting users on their buddy list to read their profiles or see if they are online (if the other user had blocked them before). However, one can block another user from communicating and also enhance privacy by selecting a menu option allowing communication only with those on one’s buddy list.
- Block: If a user is feeling threatened or annoyed by someone, they can “block” the sender, which prevents the sender from contacting the user with his or her current screenname. If a user is blocked by someone, the blocking user will always be offline for them, even though they might actually be online.
- Buddy Info: Information about the user that may be edited by the user. The user’s buddies are able to view the information as a pop-up. There is a character limit that cannot be exceeded.
- Buddy List: The centerpiece of AIM, a list containing the status of up to 1000 buddies stored on an AIM server so you can access this list from any instance of AIM. The status of the buddies can be seen as ‘online’, ‘away’, ‘idle’, ‘mobile’, or ‘offline’.
- Direct connection: AIM users can, instead of relaying messages through the AIM server, connect to each other’s computers directly via this method and send various forms of media.
- Screenname: Term for user name with AOL origins. These are available for free with registration at the AIM website.
- Spim: Spam over Instant messaging. The spam problem in e-mail has the potential to spread to Instant Messaging, in the form of on-line advertisements. As a closed network, AOL has been able to block most spam, but some still passes through to users.
- Rate limiting, which prevents a user from sending too many messages in a short amount of time. Once a user is rate limited, they are unable to send messages for 20–30 seconds, but may still receive messages during this time period.
- Warning: If a user feels a received instant message is inappropriate, he can “warn” the sender, which increases the sender’s warning level. Warning levels reduce the rate at which users can send messages and can eventually cause a given screen name to be unable to sign-on for a period of time. Since it was often abused, the feature is no longer supported in AIM Triton or AIM 6, although warnings have not been disabled serverside, meaning that older AIM clients, third-party clients, or user-written add-ons may still allow users to bypass the “soft” removal of warning capabilities.
- An AIM Closed List, Allow Only, Buddies Only, or Privacy refers to the option on the AOL Instant Messenger client to allow only users on a user’s buddy list to contact them. This is to prevent harassment or spamming and is also a secure way to chat.
- Icon: A small, personalized picture that a user can set up to appear whenever they message another user.
Miscellaneous
AIM Pages was released in May 2006, allowing the 63 million AIM users to create an online, dynamic profile. The buddy list serves as the basis for the AIM Page social network. An AIM Page is built using modules following the ModuleT microformat.
In August of 2005, AOL launched the free webmail service AOL Mail.
Source: www.wikipedia.org
By now it’s expected that major American multiplayer games like World of Warcraft will charge customers a monthly subscription fee. But the news out of Asia’s booming gaming market suggests a different approach may be more lucrative: Throw open the gates to your online world, while tempting users with small purchases that help them look good while they’re visiting.
Some of the most popular games in Asia are given away for free and charge no subscription dues, but collect micropayments for custom avatars and other items. Social networking is a key feature of the games, and it turns out players are quick to fork over yen and yuan to tweak their appearance to their liking.
At Hangame, Japan’s number one internet game portal, customers wind up spending between 30 cents and $10 an item to customize the look of their avatar, visible during social interactions and in the otherwise free games.
Games range from Flash games that are easy to play with just a mouse key or arrow, to more complex sports and RPG games. Social features include a chat window, web pages and blogs. Player profile pages, showing avatars in their customizable virtual rooms, produce 200 million page views a day, said Murota, and around 200,000 customers send e-mail to each other every day.
In an online game, an avatar becomes “an idealized version or statement about who you want to be,” said Michael Steele, evangelist at Emergent Game Technologies, and a former consultant for the Korean GoPets.
The popularity of online gaming in Japan, China and Korea dominated more than a few sessions at the 2006 Game Developers Conference in Silicon Valley last month, where U.S. companies looked for advice on developing games that appeal to the massive Asian market.
Presenting a Case Study of a Casual Game Community Portal, NHN Japan’s general manager Noriyoshi Murota logged into a live Japanese online Pachinko game. At about 4:30 a.m. Japan time, more than half the players inhabiting the online arcade were paying customers, with custom avatars. Players can look around the virtual room and compare their play — and their appearance — with others.
“Microtransactions make Asian games more fun,” said Nicole Lazzaro, president of XEODesign. “In games where people play together, the value of the game increases with the number of players.”
“Everyone understands that $10 per month adds up to $120 per year,” said Lazzaro. “This big commitment limits the market. A free game removes the barrier to entry, connecting as many of a player’s friends as possible. It is easy to spend more than $10 a month in one-dollar-and-fifty-cent impulse purchases. Plus, we all play what our friends play.”
In the United States, a handful of online offerings have adopted a similar model to Asia — notably Linden Labs’ Second Life. It’s free to use, but charges players to purchase and develop virtual property, and allows users to make and sell items to one another. But these games are the exception, not the rule.
Female players, rare in Western gaming circles, are in ample supply in Asia. In fact, they’re a coveted demographic. Korean developers have learned they can draw teenage users of both genders by winning over the women first. “They tell me, ‘If we get the girls, the boys will follow,’” said Steele.
About 20 percent of players of the casual racing game Kart Rider are women, said Min Kim, director of international business development at Nexon. Players have purchased some 20 million cars in the game, and they can record and post their races and scores on a community website, along with screenshots of their cars.
Declining to state specific numbers, Kim said money spent on customization was “a lot more than people usually pay for subscription fees,” and that the game’s concurrent user numbers were higher than every U.S game except WoW.
Source: Kathleen Craig - www.wired.com
Dating sites have come a long way, and now there are hundreds of alternative services beyond the all-encompassing Match.com and the breakout hit PlentyofFish. If you’re looking for one last summer fling (or just a human for a change –editor), we’ve picked out more than twenty niche dating services.
Meetmoi
A very nifty way to meet other singles and flirt on the go. Create a profile oin Meetmoi and using your mobile phone receive text messages with profiles of other singles that are “near” you, based on the location you submit. How you take it from there is up to you. Of course, there’s a price to pay; although pricing varies according to cell phone carrier, it’s around $.99 for 10 messages sent.
Airtroductions
The idea behind Airtroductions is for finding out who’s on your flight and meeting them. Airtroductions could be used for a variety of introductions, most notably dating. Users have profiles with a photo, their occupation, astrological sign and more - good for shy daters, but bad if you take a dislike to your match and have to sit next to them for hours.
Consumating
A geek’s paradise: a dating site based around tags and aimed at self-confessed freaks. Consumating spices it up with the features of a typical social network: host conversations, participate in contests and start meetings with others. Consumating also features a widget you can insert on any website that streams profiles according to the requirements you define.
Youme.us
Not a conventional dating site, but a question answer community which revolves around dating. If you have relationship or dating issues, come in for a peer consult.
Collaboradate
100% free online dating with a collection of the latest online networking features -tagging, widgets, thumbs up/down voting, date mapping and more. It’s dating 2.0, baby.
PodDater
PodDater allows you to submit and search through video dating profiles. Profiles are searched via tags and downloaded to your potential match’s iPod for later viewing.
Truedater
Truedater is a dating companion that lets you review your past dates and partners. Find out whether your next date is all that (s)he claims to be in online profiles on popular online dating sites. Includes social networking and vengeful ex-girlfriends.
Vegetariandating.com
A paid (limited free access) online dating service for vegetarians, with a number of advanced matching features such as soulmatch, starmatch, and selectmatch. Suitable for vegetarians, obviously.
YesNoMayb
Hot or Not for dating. Mark profiles with “yes”, “no” and “maybe” and you’re notified when the your tagged profiles tag you back favorably. Unfortunately, it’s a paid service.
FindMeDateMe
A bit of dating site “hacking” for you: FineMeDateMe takes the fees out of dating by locating the profile that interests you on a major paid dating site, and letting you get in touch for free.
Verbdate
Online dating that offers anonymous voice conversations via Skype without revealing your phone number.
Prescription4love
An alternative online dating service that helps people with health conditions find their other half.
Paird
Online dating with a twist, where users can play matchmaker. Fun with a friendly interface and Flickr-inspired name.
Greatboyfriends
An online dating service that lets you recommend “great boyfriends and girlfriends”. Everyone has a friend they think is a catch. With Greatboyfriends you can help out your friend and his/her perfect match.
Engage
Engage helps you find love through your friends. Add friends and wait for them to add their friends and as the tree grows, there’s bound to be a match. Dating goes viral, but not in a bad way.
I’m In Like With You
Currently available by invitation only (invites here). I’m in Like With You is unlike any other dating or flirting service. Play games to earn points in order to have a chance to speak to the game host, by bidding with the points you’ve won. The game host will choose the winner out of the top 5 bidders. This flirting frenzy service can be used online or on your mobile phone.
Matchmake.us
A very basic matching platform for dating that allows users to decide whether profiles make a good pair or not.
Kizmeet
Kizmeet is an online service for missed connections. Number of cities is currently limited.
Matchtag
Activity matching using every geography freak’s favorite tool: Google maps. The idea is to help you find activity partners and love, anywhere you go.
Wannago
Event-based dating: post an event and wait for members with the same interests and geographic location to join you.
Minglenow
Minglenow helps you find venues, hook up with people in your area, then upload photos to your profile from your phone. The site uses a lot of trendy web 2.0 features: photo sharing, social networking, messaging, groups and more.
Meetup
Meetup isn’t explicitly a dating service, but anecdotal reports are that it can help. Meet people through activities in your area, rate events and keep in touch with members. As mentioned earlier this week, Meetup now has a Facebook application so that users can add their Meetup plans to their Facebook profiles.
Source: mashable.com
Last week, VWD reported that uVme had its 10,000th player register on the .com site.
Since then, the number of players has more than doubled - to 20,506!
Where will it be in a year? Have you joined and claimed your slice of this collosal pie yet? Or are you sitting on the fence, and well watching the boat sail by?
You have the power and the opportunity to change your life. You can make anything you want of it. It’s not difficult, it just takes some effort.
See things as you would have them be instead of as they are. Develop a personal plan that focuses on what you want, not on what you have.
Your imagination will show you how to turn possibility into reality. Visualize your goals and your subconscious will work toward making those mental picture come true.
When you picture yourself as vividly winning, that alone will contribute immeasurably to your success.
Knowing your destination is all you need to get there.
Copyright 2008 www.yourdailymotivation.com